Throughout my life, I’ve become very well acquainted with nightmares.
It’s something that I experience periodically, but more frequently during times of intense stress and/or anxiety.
Although I know it’s a pretty standard thing that happens, it’s the brain’s way of processing things in our subconscious. Knowing that, unfortunately, doesn’t help me make sense of what I dreamt or feel less terrified when I wake up.
I naively hoped that after having the hysterectomy sleep would come a bit easier. Boy, was I wrong!
On top of the regular visits from the dysfunctional dream center, I also struggle with periods of insomnia, which together make a delicious cocktail of tossing, turning, and turbulent emotions. The irony is that the more tired I become, the more emotional I am, so going through prolonged periods of fitful sleep (if any) leaves me feeling like a child that my body can no longer carry.
There has been an interesting change to the underlying topic of the nightmares as of late that took me a while to recognise.
It used to be more surrounding failure to protect something or someone I love either from imminent physical harm or a battle that they were (or had) faced. I would always be a helpless bystander unable to save them or ease their suffering. Waking up would be a relief (eventually) when I knew we were safe or that the loved one’s suffering had long since ceased.
Another irony that is not lost on me is that the cause of my nightmares – the fear of the future and uncertainty – all stems from the ticking clock, the biological clock. I always hated that term and its connotation to being a woman. It’s like being faced with genetically acceptable infertility somehow invalidates our value.
But it’s not that biological clock that’s nagging at my subconscious mind… It’s becoming more and more away that big changes will happen that I have no control over or cannot prepare for.
It’s the time that I have left to love my floofy, or soulmate, or family, or friends, getting less and less. I can’t imagine a life without them. How do you say goodbye to something so deeply integrated into your life?
It’s adding up the lines of my resume. The accomplishments, experiences, or changes that feel like yesterday are getting further away. How do you stay on top of the game when the rules keep changing?
It’s checking and re-checking the dates and times for the next blood test, scan, or doctor’s appointment, in the hopes of it not being a bombshell, but knowing it can be. How do you plan for the future without worrying about the future?
Lately, waking up doesn’t bring immediate relief because they are much more focused on what’s ahead than the past or present. It takes a lot more conscious processing to help ease the anxiety.
I don’t have the answers yet. It will probably be like facing a pandemic or cancer – we’ll find a way to get through it. It wasn’t easy. It didn’t make sense. But when we got there, God was there. And He will continue to be there if something comes up in the future, and it will become a new normal.
Shattered Warrior 